Tequila Makes Paul Go Blind

I am NOT a prude.

At least, I didn't think I was until I tripped over the Tila Tequila show one night while surfing the 500-channel wasteland looking for something to watch.

Now, I'm not so sure. Maybe I am a prude. Maybe, in this day and age, anyone who thinks it's a bad idea to launch a reality show where the prize is a “shot" of or at Tila Tequila, the MySpace star with 2 million friends, is a prude. And that's me. I think it's a bad idea, ergo, I'm a prude.

I guess you could ask: Is this guy nuts? All the porn on the planet and he's complaining about A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila, which is kind of an employment program for the aspiring models who couldn't make it on the A-list reality shows like the Bachelor.

But A Shot etc. has to be the cheesiest piece of MTV ever produced for mass consumption. For the most part, it's a string of standard reality show cliches, but the big deal is that Tila is allegedly bisexual, which makes her a love object for both men and women.

So, 16 men and 16 women, who have never met this runaway from a strict Buddhist upbringing in - wait for it -Texas, are forced to live together and endure a variety of serial humiliations until there's only one left, who gets a “shot" at love with Tila Tequila, who allegedly (again) has had her heart broken by scads of men and women and has to resort to such desperate measures to find her one true, uh, love.

Of course, at 26, Tila has spent most of her short life looking for love in all the wrong places: strip clubs and auto shows; if she just followed her parents' advice and stayed home and married a nice Buddhist from Texas, she wouldn't need to go through all this reality show nonsense, but Tila is a self-made bisexual temptress love object and answers to no man/woman.

If it is not obvious to anyone over the age of 9 that this is nothing more than a soft-core cheap trick dedicated to selling acne cream, I'll eat my puritan chapeau, but the problem is that the average age of the people watching this dreck is 9, and I defy any 9-year-old to shake off the harmful effects of even one episode's exposure.

For greenlighting and then actually producing A Shot etc., the people at MTV ought to be ashamed of themselves, have their brains washed out with soap and sent to bed (alone) without their suppers. It's hard enough trying to raise a kid in this carnival of temptations known as the free world in 2007, but this is worse than a computer virus that infects kids with the mumps. It's like a video venereal disease, the worst kind of human interaction, where everyone is “hot", where money from nowhere is everywhere, where bad behavior is rewarded, and where real feelings are not allowed on the set.

It's sex for sale, honey, a Hollywood extension of the auto shows from which Tila hails. It's the kind of glamor that teeters on platform spike heels made of clear plastic. And if MTV is prepared to argue that kids aren't exposed because it airs on 10 pm on a Tuesday nights, MTV has a lot of nerve, because every kid in North America has a video player on their phone or an iPod with earphones, and all they have to do is pull the covers over their heads and absorb as much mind and soul destroying garbage as their hard drive can hold.

Whew. I am one upset prude.

I ask myself, would I be upset if A Shot, etc. weren't so obviously cheesy? Am I merely a sex snob? How is this any worse than The Bachelor, for example, which has only roused mild contempt on the Prude-ometer? You could even argue that The Bachelor is worse because it makes a mockery of marriage, that formerly cherished institution, as the winning bride, after endless months of scratching all her competitors' eyes out, gets to experience the white wedding of her dreams with the third string quarterback for a losing NFL franchise, the guy who carries the clipboard on the sideline while the real quarterback gives his guts for glory. It's like, marrying a clerk for money.

But The Bachelor does pretend in a slightly more genteel fashion than A Shot, etc. which is such a blatant sex-fest, you should have to wear a condom on your head while viewing.

And it's the worst kind of sex- it's sex trade sex, which is an inch away from the mean streets and hard times. And it's on the number one kid station. If that doesn't get you going “hmmm," I don't know what will.

Quick, before it's too late, take your kids into the hills and read Black Beauty to them until they turn 21. Either that or get up off the couch and answer the door - its your daughter's pimp.